Similarities between trying for google summer of code and hitting on a girl

I think these two are quite similar.

> The girl you are hitting on is like your gsoc mentor.

> And the relationship that you are proposing to her is like your project.

Now you all will agree with the following points:

You have to work very hard trying to convince the mentor, that you are the right person for this job and will successfully complete the project.

There are different types of mentors. Some are impressed when you immediately start contributing to the project ;), whereas others want a detailed timeline from you of how you would be doing the project.

Nobody has ever been able to understand the ideology of mentors. You think they are supporting you in the start, but they are doing the same for every other candidate.

Sometimes, there are other fellow-mentors also (girl's friends). In that case, you have to impress them also with your work.

There may be other candidates that are trying to achieve the same project. They often try to convince the mentor that they are more skilled than you but in most of the cases, what matters here is being consistant.

It totally depends on you how you choose to show your past projects to the mentor. It may directly get you the project OR your failure in your past projects, if known by the current mentor may harm your chances.

There are cases when mentor keeps responding positively to you but when the results are announced, the project is given to a person who was totally stranger before.

It's wise to start with a mentor which has recently opened projects for students and therefore is not known to many people.

On the other hand, the mentor which has been offereing projects for some years now is always crowded with candidates.

I think these points surely show some relation between the two scenarios. And there are definitely more to add, but I'll leave it to you.

Cheers !